Red V-Raptor XE Announcement

[DustinSchmidt]

Fun times for camera announcements today.

Looks like RED is also releasing a frame-rate handicapped version of the V-Raptor. Still has global shutter though and the same image quality.

If you don't want the high frame rates then this is an interesting camera. Personally I think one of the best things about the RED V-Raptor IS the frame rates, so this isn't up my alley.

 

[rob norton]

Narrative filmmakers considering this should be celebrating. And it seems like 50/60p is all anyone wants for corporate slow motion work, so potentially a welcome price drop for some in that space.

Everyone should've removed the "want" element from their purchasing a long time ago, especially during times like these. It just comes down to whether you can leverage the better quality image, even if the gap is smaller. I think an underrated selling point is the stills photography side of things.

Funnily enough, the stills from the 8k RED files - in certain cases, can be a legitimate selling point too. I imagine RED stills would be at the top or at least tied at the top in terms of providing still frames. No need for a "what about shutter speed" counter, that's not my point. I'm saying now more than ever, with one person providing stills and video deliverables, and with all else equal, it's worth thinking about who would provide a better SET of photos/videos?:

- stills photographer with high end stills camera, e.g. Sony A1 ii/Canon R5 ii, shooting stills, as well as their best efforts using those cameras in the video department
or
- talented Red V-Raptor XE user nailing the video, while pulling frames from the video clips for the stills

Who would you hire?

There's lots and lots to consider - lighting, portrait vs. landscape, schedule etc. BUT if the photography stakes are low enough, and maybe if it lets you avoid buying a $3-$5k stills camera, I'd at least be considering this camera.

In the video only space, despite constantly trying, I'm not in a place to buy a camera like this, but would welcome a more cost effective rental rate vs. hiring the original at a higher price.

 

[DustinSchmidt]

Narrative filmmakers considering this should be celbrating. And it seems like 50/60p is all anyone wants for corporate slow motion work, so potentially a welcome price drop for some in that space.

Everyone should've removed the "want" element from their purchasing a long time ago, especially during times like these. It just comes down to whether you can leverage the better quality image, even if the gap is smaller. I think an underrated selling point is the stills photography side of things.

Funnily enough, the stills from the 8k RED files - in certain cases, can be a legitimate selling point too. I imagine RED stills would be at the top or at least tied at the top in terms of providing still frames. No need for a "what about shutter speed" counter, that's not my point. I'm saying now more than ever, with one person providing stills and video deliverables, and with all else equal, it's worth thinking about who would provide a better SET of photos/videos?:

- stills photographer with high end stills camera, e.g. Sony A1 ii/Canon R5 ii, shooting stills, as well as their best efforts using those cameras in the video department
or
- talented Red V-Raptor XE user nailing the video, while pulling frames from the video clips for the stills

Who would you hire?

There's lots and lots to consider - lighting, portrait vs. landscape, schedule etc. BUT if the photography stakes are low enough, and maybe if it lets you avoid buying a $3-$5k stills camera, I'd at least be considering this camera.

In the video only space, despite constantly trying, I'm not in a place to buy a camera like this, but would welcome a more cost effective rental rate vs. hiring the original at a higher price.

You make a very interesting point regarding stills Rob. As someone who shoots stills quite regularly, as well as video, I'm always getting requests to do both on jobs.

Oftentimes this either means hiring additional crew to shoot video or photo and copy whatever I'm shooting for one medium in the other. Or it means I'm shooting the same scenes twice, once for video and once for photo.

This has kind of always been the way of things in my usual jobs and I can't say I've seen a lot of professionals using RED to deliver both mediums to clients, outside of pulling a few frame grabs here and there. Despite RED's claim that their cameras are DSMC (Digital Stills and Motion Cameras), most of the RED shooters I know only use them for video capture.

There's some things I've done on recent shoots to try and accommodate both stills and video effectively, in a limited time frame. One of those things was to light all of my scenes for video, or to leverage high powered LED's for both the video and stills capture.

Due to the increased shutter speeds I'm using with stills compared to video (typically 1/200 or so on stills, 180 degree (1/48) on video) this meant increasing the ISO and even shooting a bit underexposed for stills and then bumping the exposure further in post-production to get to a comparable exposure.

All of this to say, if I could shoot everything only once on an 8K V-Raptor and then deliver video clips and stills and manage to fulfill the brief for clients by doing so, I would jump on that train in an instant.

It's probably worth a try on some very low stakes jobs to see how it could work out. Honestly I'd probably just give it a shot with 8K capture on my R5C as a starting point.

 

[rob norton]

When pausing some (not all) of the V-raptor frames on the timeline, it can feel like you’re looking at a photo. It also depends on if two people doing dedicated mediums slow things down or speed things up. A “handover” from photo to video can be fine, but it can be tough moving through all scenes together doing a 50/50 split (or a ballpark split if the photographer gets carried away and eats into the video time). Do you ever edit frames from a video clip in photo editing software? It’d be a pretty unique shootout seeing which camera gave the best stills from their video clips.

 

[DustinSchmidt]

When pausing some (not all) of the V-raptor frames on the timeline, it can feel like you’re looking at a photo. It also depends on if two people doing dedicated mediums slow things down or speed things up. A “handover” from photo to video can be fine, but it can be tough moving through all scenes together doing a 50/50 split (or a ballpark split if the photographer gets carried away and eats into the video time). Do you ever edit frames from a video clip in photo editing software? It’d be a pretty unique shootout seeing which camera gave the best stills from their video clips.

I'll often export stills from Resolve when grabbing frames for social media promotional use.

You're absolutely right, sometimes they can look fantastic. It really depends on the speed of what's going on in front of the camera and if I can get sharp frames. I prefer to pull those frames from Resolve since I'm already grading the footage in there anyway.

If I'm shooting stills only then I'm shooting on my R5C and I process the files in Capture One.